Cornwall ON – Tim “Cool Hand Luke” Hudak has just announced that if given the controls of power of Ontario that he’d force inmates to work.
Essentially Mr. Hudak feels that inmates have way too good a time hanging out in prison where they can take up such activities as ““Freeing the Human Spirit” yoga classes, interactive writing workshops and crock-pot cooking classes.”
Such activities at the expense of Ontario taxpayers raise his dander as opposed to off shore bank accounts and big dollar bail outs to favored corporate interests.
“We’re not asking convicted prisoners to do anything more than what hard-working Ontario families do every day: work.” – Tim Hudak, Ontario PC Leader
“Prisoners, through their own actions, have taken enough from society. It’s time they give something back.” – Tim Hudak, Ontario PC Party Leader
See this scares the crap out of me, because our system is fraught with hurdles that basically leave those who can’t defend themselves in jail. Rich white collar criminal who can afford a good lawyer? You won’t be doing any “Timmy Time” working at such tasks as: raking leaves, cutting grass, picking up trash, and cleaning graffiti)
From a media release today:
If elected on October 6, a Tim Hudak government will end the practice of letting convicted prisoners spend their time watching TV and will require work programs to be mandatory.
Question? How many jobs would be lost in our economy when all this “free labour” is available? Is this work pensionable? Disability? WSIB? Is this what we really want for Ontario?
And boo on the Bruins! Go Tampa Bay!
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Oh no, we will see armed guards in the streets beside criminals and armoured transportation transports!
I have driven some roads in New Hampshire or Maine where work crews were cleaning the roads, it all looked pretty controlled.
Some work is a good idea to keep these guys busy and show them what many of us around our homes. I would like to see a pilot project at least and effects on recividism.
How many jobs would be lost in our economy when all this “free labor” is available?
Jamie you have got to be kidding me, you are a socialist.
Can you not see the road sides, the infrastructure messes in communities that are currently not being taken care of?
These convicts will not be holding down positions of employment in social environments nor taking jobs from people that already exist. They will be on the menial labor jobs; jobs you and your paper have claimed do not pay enough for families to support themselves.
Too we can see it eliminating, well with a little fairy dust that is, the need to raise taxes to pay municipal employees to sit in their trucks. Hopefully that is!
Kingston currently has a minimum security prison where the inmates tend to on site agriculture. The wares are sold in market and used to feed the inmates. I wonder how many jobs that took from the public?
I would love for you to tell the public who currently is in prison that does not deserve to be there. Then I would love to see the amount of real criminals sitting on a free pass of lodging and recreation compared to the masses you claim are in prison due to an error in the system.
Even the convicts need something to ensure some form of accomplishment.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
May be a good idea but it would have to be very controlled. Bringing inmates out to work each day could give them chances to escape.
Everyday in prison is a holiday of no work like rock candy mountain. Sure. Labour and materials. Make them pay for their incarceration. Give them 65 cents an hour to work. Set up some assembly line work. A small light fixture manufacturer or a chip board furniture maker or, I hear call centers work quite well in some prisons. Bill Gates had Micro-Soft 95 packaged in Washington State prison. That was just good business sense. In Kingston, prisoners make a lot of the Federal office furniture. It’s good because they can work without sick days or unions, pensions and corporate income tax. The supervisors have more control in motivating workers, no Bill 168 in there, eh? It’s also good because it takes the pressure off local and national factories who would otherwise have to pay a much higher wage. Most Canadians are too lazy to work for less than a dollar an hour. It’s all about labour and materials. Incentives like this are needed especially for the private prison industry which needs internal labour to help take the pressure off unions. Increasing membership just makes more paperwork for unions and that drives up their expenses.
Ontario Works, right? Besides about 60 to 70 percent of prisoners are mentally ill anyway and have huge fines they could never pay. What do they know? Some of those jobs might be too complicated for the deranged so maybe part of the answer is to get a higher quality of prisoner. Some non-violent prisoners from normally unreported crime, would help. “Think inside the box.” could be their motto. A little slavery goes a long way and history does show many positive economic benefits of slavery. It works out real well for the contractors. The prisoners won’t get fat on all that lobster. Maybe through programs like this, some prisoners could be rewarded by having more than one bed sheet or allowed vitamin pills, fruit or vegetables.
I’m hoping that the UCFW and UAW can have a chit-chat with Tim Hudak over this. I’m sure there are reasonable accommodations that can be made to start with. After all – what else are we going to do with all these new prisons planned?
Course, with the wave of a Federal wand we don’t even need to discuss it. We don’t have to think anymore, how relaxing. He can do our thinking for us. There are definite benefits to having most of the voter turn out, coming from that generation which takes, a half dozen different prescription drugs and tranquilizers every day – this is certainly one of them. Thanks.
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0301001h.html
Yes Smee. I’m a Social Conservative. You’ve found me out!
Wow Roy, there must be someone to insult that your list missed…..
“Too lazy to work for a dollar an hour” and you say older voters are on several prescriptions.
I do not want the Unions having a chit chat with Tim Hudak, I want Tim Hudak having a chat with them!
The percentage of prisoners mentally ill and being housed in jail instead of proper instutions is under 30%.
We do not even know exactly what the jobs entail, but I imagine most of them will easy, perhaps you could apply?
This is great! When Harper gets the mega-prisons built and filled, and WhoDat gets the inmates working for nothing, we should all reap the benefits of lower taxes and cleaner roadways. I think the plan is to get the Canadian incarceration rate up to the US (Land of the Free) rate….about one out of every one-hundred citizens. The logic is that if we imprison one percent of the population, and make them work to survive, we will all be better off financially, and crime will finally be vanquished. For now, we should just ignore the cost of incarcerating one person per year, and the fact that our crime rates have been flat or dropping for quite a few years.
Social Conservative Jamie? Like Preston Manning, Stockwell Day, David Mainse or Charles McVety?
You sure have kept that dark side hidden. 🙂
Ah yes Furtz with only half the information again. The only crime rates that are down are the reportable crimes. If the crime does not have a high enough weight or severity it is not a crime. Well not in the eyes of statisticians working with statistics Canada.
Last year they introduced something called the Crime Severity Index
“The Crime Severity Index tracks changes in the severity of police-reported crime by accounting for both the amount of crime reported by police in a given jurisdiction and the relative seriousness of these crimes. It tells us not only how much crime is coming to the attention of police, but also about the seriousness of that crime.
To do this, each type of offence is assigned a seriousness “weight”. The weights are derived from actual sentences handed down by courts in all provinces and territories. More serious crimes are assigned higher weights, less serious offences lower weights.
The specific weight for any given type of offence consists of two parts. The first component is the incarceration rate for that offence type. This is the proportion of people convicted of the offence who are sentenced to time in prison. The second component is the average (mean) length of the prison sentence, in days, for the specific type of offence.”
Similar stats are used in employment rates, we hear the unemployment rate has dropped but we do not have all the information. Unemployment stats are based on people receiving EI. As the EI term ends these people are then on the preverbal cash for life system and or living in poverty or working in black market jobs.
They do not match the statistic criteria used when calculating unemployment rates
So I guess your claim crime rates are down is inaccurate. Or wrong
Smee the fastest growing crime in Canada is white collar crime. Fraud. I know as we were the victims of a roofer a few years ago and not his only one. The impact of fraud is much larger than simple petty crimes that take up huge resources to sort out and prosecute.
Don’t look for mystery crime. There’s plenty to tackle it’s just that our system doesn’t want to tackle it.
Admin
Stay on topic, I know what crimes are growing…trust me I am facing white collar crime myself and have in the past. However that is not what the post was about.
It was furtz’s claim crime was on the decline, his statement was inaccurate.
Too if you wish to know why our system won’t tackle crime allow me quote a media persons opinions. It can pretty much explain why the system says screw it …they are dammed if they do and dammed if they don’t
“See this scares the crap out of me, because our system is fraught with hurdles that basically leave those who can’t defend themselves in jail. Rich white collar criminal who can afford a good lawyer? You won’t be doing any ”
Followed by
“Question? How many jobs would be lost in our economy when all this “free labour” is available? Is this work pensionable? Disability? WSIB? Is this what we really want for Ontario?”
Walk away from your desk and take a good look in the mirror ( once unpacked that is) and you can see why they refuse to do the job.
You asked for it you have it and you still complain
I have worked for many years in several correctional settings including Federal Prisons and Provincial Detention Centres. Due to cut backs in funding over the years to correction programs the inmates have no choice but to sit around cause there are few jobs on the inside to be had and precious little else to do. Further more, education programs and skilled work programs along with addiction work needs to be implemented. But there is no money in Harpers’ budget for that! Prison is no free ride my friends, we all pay the price to incarcerate someone and without appropriate programs to address the needs of prisoners, there will always be a revolving door. I’ve always maintained that Politicians should spend a few days in jail for good measure so they have a better understanding what the staff and prisoners have to deal with.
Smee is right, Furtz. Indictable crime among Members of Parliament and Senators has been rising at a far higher rate than the rest of society. We need capital punishment for MP’s and Senators that commit indictable offences.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1080
If Hudak was smart, he would also include all able welfare recipients in his “make work” plans.
This is all smoke and mirrors by the Conservatives to divert our attention away from what truly matters. Remember Mike Harris and the boot camp for kids.
Seniors care, health care as well as an affordable way of life for all of Ontario, just to name a few much more important issues.
Newsworthy
I am not sure I understand your point of view, You state prisons are no free ride yet you also state prisoners are forced to sit around because of cut backs…isn’t sitting around kind of like a free ride? Considering they are there on tax payers dime.
As for the politicians, I’ll drive the bus for ya and we can put em all in prison.
oh willie how entertaining…how ya gonna pay Seniors care, health care as well as an affordable way of life for all of Ontario??
You keep complaining but offer no alternatives….and a party of socialist liars does not an asnwer make
smee we can cut off corporate welfare for ungrateful car companies http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/Chrysler+repays+government+loans/4832870/story.html
Or we can shore up loop holes that allow the richest in our province and country to send their dollars offshore or worse, move their businesses off shore, skirt our system, and then sell those goods to us that kill off the companies that stay here and try to survive.
@ admin. Like Paul Martin Jr, our last Liberal PM, registering his CSL ships in foreign countries to avoid safety and labour regulations and taxes. What a fine Canadian he is.
Well smee, you seem to know more about prison life than an experienced prison guard.
How many years did you spend in prison?
You certainly are a dink.
Yes you can and when they decide to leave the country for better advantages else where what then Admin?
He didn’t read Macbeth either Furtz 😉
He probably did Jamie, but when someone is that high in the food-chain, there are few lessons to be learned.
Just found Paul’s web site. If this doesn’t make you toss your cookies, nothing will. This guy has absolutely NO morals.
http://www.paulmartin.ca/
Furtz? – “This guy has absolutely NO morals”. And you do? You must be hiding them, or…
I see our radical hatemongering preacher is alive and well and living in Cornwall, Ontario.
Yes, I know. One has to join the preacher’s cult to have morals.
Now guys; let’s not get too personal here please. Attack the message if you must; not so much the messenger.
I’m curious to know whether the preacher has slowed down with his venom-spewing, or if it’s being blocked. I kinda miss being told I’m gonna burn in hell.